Um... my pet theory of the book is that it's meant to be a sort of "one night stand" if you will. You meet someone for a brief time, things happen, but once you part in the morning mysteries don't necessarily all get resolved. (If that makes any sense.)

I read this half a year ago, so I might not remember the book quite that well anymore. Also, I think there's probably some other meaning with the sister.

No idea what was going on with Eri. I thought at first the 'long sleep' was just setting a mood, like alienation or something like that. But when we started to see The Man with No Face and his skin-tight mask and all that, I lost any idea of what was going on. When the narrator first names him he talks about this side and the other side, which is the only real significant thing I took from the Eri story.

Well, as I promised I would take part in the discussion. I don't know if a lot of people just haven't quite finished the book yet or not, but I'm a little disappointed with the outcome of this final discussion.

Overall, I can't say that I really enjoyed the book. Murakami's writing style just didn't appeal to me much in this story although I haven't read anything else of his to compare it with. I did like Mari as a character, and I liked a lot of the underlying tones that she felt for her sister. I really wished that more of the story would get wrapped up, but I did like that it was told over one night. It makes me wish I would have read it all in one sitting to fully capture the night.

I don't know if some of the things he writes are only understandable by japanese readers and there are no great translations to capture the meaning of what he tries to say.

Anyway I like to think that the walk slowly part means that there is no need to hurry at all, because if you do, you might make mistakes or make the wrong decisions or simply waste your life meaningless. And water is the elixir of life. The more you drink the healthier you are. Perhaps my point of view isn't intellectual enough, but it doesn't make sense to me otherwise.

I don't know if some of the things he writes are only understandable by japanese readers and there are no great translations to capture the meaning of what he tries to say.

Kafka on the Shore was my first Murakami read and this is EXACTLY how I felt about it. Now that i've read some more of his work I realize that the things I found really strange are recurring motifs in his works.

Don't self-deprecate! Your point of view is good; it's an interpretation i never would have thought of. I'm not sure what it means, but for me, water has a lot of symbolic uses. eg: the colour ue can signify mean calmness, depth, truth, heaven .etc. Water itself can signify emotions, purity, transcendence, (the elixir of) life, subconscious. But yeah, i'm spouting these out but i've got no real point here sorry, i got no idea how any of them work with the phrase. :)

I don't recall the name of the person who said it felt like it wasn't complete. I can't agree more with it. It left me asking for more. I was so amazed when I read the first 2-3 chapters, but then it went downhill. I mean... what was the point to begin with? It felt to me that there was none. Mari seemed like a good character though. As did Korogi, but there was nothing said about her. And Shirakawa? What the hell happened to him? Who was the man in Eri's room? And why don't we know more about Eri? At some point Mari says that Eri is sort of ok. That she's just sleeping. They leave food in her room on the table and then they collect the empty tray. But they never saw or heard her eating. And they never saw or heard her use the bathroom either. Oooook. For real? Let's be real for a moment. Your daughter is sleeping the endless sleep and you just let it happen? You brought some doctors and they did nothing? And that's just fine? You can't wake her up and you do nothing more than bringing food to her? I'm really ok with the supernatural and the like, but that was common sense. And they didn't use it. (Eri's family)

Well I don't know why, but I didn't understand it. And I wish someone who did, to explain it to me. Not like I'm five or something, but to guide me through it. I don't know if it's Murakami's world that I don't get, but it felt kind of strange and like it didn't make sense at all at some points.

I just wanted to address the point you had about the reaction from Mari and Eri's family to Eri's sleep seeming unrealistic. I always think of Murakami's books as Asian Magical Realism, which helps me swallow a lot of the unrealistic stuff. But you're right, this doesn't seem like the supernatural, just a lack of common sense. However, I feel like maybe there's a deeper meaning here, something to do with being alone. All of the characters seemed very independent, even lonely. While they are able to receive some level of assistance from others, they mostly have to rely on themselves. If Murakami's message is that we are all alone in the world, and that we have to fend for ourselves, Eri serves as an example that even our family will only do so much for us. I have no idea if this is accurate, but it's my take on it. Hope it helps!

It does help and a lot I might add. You're right. I now think that the meaning is that we are alone and no one will do anything for us as long as we do something expected, in this case eating and using the bathroom. Thanks for your reply. :)

Personally, I didn't like the camera-POV narration and that put me off liking the book. But I still saw some interesting things even if the plot wasn't satisfying. Murakami works always have this vague/enigmatic feeling to them where it's up to the reader to make their own meanings and connections. You remember that scene where Shirakawa's image stays reflected in the mirror, distorts, twists, fades away in that illusory way? I think that After Dark is similar to that image, in the way that it's difficult to pin down what exactly it is we're seeing (this image works on a few levels, with a few of the metaphors in the book: mirrors & reflections & surfaces, dualities & particularly this side v. other side, time, light v. dark .etc.). There's a great gem in here about creativity, and the relationship between the artist and audience, said by Takahashi: "You send the music deep enough into your heart so that it makes your body undergo a kind of a physical shift, and simultaneously the listener's body also undergoes the same kind of physical shift. It's giving birth to that kind of shared state."

My main issue was the Eri/Man with no Face storylines, because I didn't really understand what most of the metaphors were supposed to be saying. I guess the extended metaphor throughout the whole book is about darkness. On the superficial level it's simply nighttime, Tokyo between 12 & 6, but the deeper level is examining the darker recesses of the human soul. Not much was said about Korogi but she (and the whole scenario surrounding the prostitute) seem to highlight this. Korogi was running away, and had those marks on her back (another extended metaphor, about the marks we leave on people, i guess) and plenty of mental scars to fuel her fear for a lifetime. The main Korogi conversation had some great lines about memory too, where she says that memories are the fuel we burn to stay alive. This stuff gets wrapped up nicely at the end when the day is just beginning the narrator says that for most people, the day is like a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be written on.

I don't know if this really illuminates anything for you, but i've got the same problem: the book doesn't feel finished. There are plenty of things where I'm struggling to understand the significant meaning, and all pieced together I can't fit it into a 'bigger picture'. On the backcover of my copy one review says 'the novel could be an allegory of sleep, a phenomenology of time, or a cinematic metafiction'. I guess it has elements of all of those things, and more, but it's up to us to read what we want into it.

It's been some weeks now since I've read it, so I don't remember, but do we know who the Man with no Face is? At some point I thought it was Takahashi. To my defence I haven't read anything of Murakami besides After Dark. And I've seen too many japanese films where the supernatural plays a big role. So first I thought that Takahashi was some kind of spirit who visited both sisters. But then Takahashi "became" human. Flesh, blood, bones and life. And that was not a good thing to me since it made the whole story kind of real and it started to puzzle me.

I also like to add that I'd prefer it to be a short film rather than a book. I think I'd like it more that way.

I thought there was a connection between Shirakawa and the Man with No Face because the VERITECH pencil (the company Shirakawa works for) appears in the 'other side' of the TV screen. It isn't much of a link, and i've got no idea what it might mean.